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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115520">burnt up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass'>scorpionGrass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Shadow Game - Amanda Foody</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>King of Fools, Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:20:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115520</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a few minutes sooner, and she’d never have pulled the trigger.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>burnt up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The City of Sin is cruel and unforgiving. Enne knew this, yet it’s only now that the truth sinks into her like a blade down to her very core. Even as they sit around the radio in the common room of the Iron’s museum, as they share in all of the tragedy, death, and betrayal that night had wrought, Enne feels more alone than ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s when silence falls over their group once again after all their cards are set on the table that it feels permanent this time. Even the sounds of the city won’t interrupt it, and Enne is so uncomfortable that she does it herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should go,” Enne says. She’s about to rattle off an excuse, but Levi’s hand on her shoulder stops her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stay for the night,” he says. “We can’t save Jonas, but lets at least say goodbye at Liberty Square tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He won’t even look her in the eye, still staring at the set of metallic cards on the table. At his own, the Emperor. At Enne’s, the Empress.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ever since her first day in New Reynes, they’d been played as a set by the entire city. By Vianca, now rotting in St. Morse’s ballroom, by the Phoenix Club, who’d wanted them dead, and now by Bryce, the Bargainer and one of the city’s deadliest legends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Enne had never felt further apart from Levi as she did now. Still, she forces herself to speak. “Where would we stay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Upstairs, any room with an open door is fair game,” Levi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing about tonight had been fair game. Nothing since the day she stepped off the boat from Bellamy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she gets to her feet, Lola and Grace follow. Lola sets Tock, who’d been sleeping soundly on her shoulder, gently down onto the carpet before coming to Enne’s side and setting a comforting hand on her arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The trudge up the stairs, exhausted and coated with the night’s grime, and don’t say a word until the door to an empty room is shut behind them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” Lola asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grace shoots her a look. “Of course she’s not, she’s mucking trembling!” she says before wrapping Enne in a tight hug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Enne’s legs feel like they’ll collapse under her at any second and allows her Second and Third to lead her over to the bed and sit her down. She feels Lola’s arm come around her shoulders and Grace envelop her hands with both of hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you… want to talk about it?” Lola asks, but there’s hesitancy there. He’d been her friend too. A confidante in his life. Enne wonders if she really wants to know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re here if you do, but if it’s too hard…” Grace adds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The omerta,” Enne starts, so quietly that even she has to strain to hear herself. “It told me ‘again.’”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Again?” Grace asks, brow furrowing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The first bullet didn’t-- it didn’t and I couldn’t--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lola’s grip around her shoulders tightens, but Enne hardly notices, already choking up and trying to breathe. It’s like the omerta still has a hold on her, but she knows that’s impossible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If she’d just died sooner,” she manages, hiccuping through tears, “even a couple of minutes, Jac--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her Second and Third hold her tighter still, Lola now stroking a hand through her knotted hair and Grace wiping the tears under her eyes, no doubt smudging all of the makeup that Vianca’s assistant had dabbed onto her face that evening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s still wearing the pink corseted dress that Vianca had put her in, her gun out of bullets but still secure in her pocket along with her black silk mask. She wants to burn it and everything else that Vianca had given her. It was all cursed, and it should all die along with Vianca and the omerta that had taken away so much from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How quickly mourning turns to rage in her broken heart. She swallows the last of her tears and embraces it, pushing her shoulders back and letting her expression harden into the kind of poker face New Reynes demanded of her, holding her head up high.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lola and Grace exchange a look. “Enne,” Lola starts tentatively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get Levi,” Enne says, and though her posture is rigid, her voice still cracks over his name. “And Grace, help me out of this mucking dress.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both open their mouths, about to protest and ask questions, but Enne knows the answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s gone now,” she says, still quiet but now taking on a  lethal edge. “We’re burning it, along with any other ‘gifts’ she’s ever given me.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just finished King of Fools and I have way too many feelings so here have this.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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